


Gethsemane (I Only Wanted To Say)

by ChristocentricQueer



Series: Pastor Fell [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Author is a Trans Christian Pastor, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Biblical Scripture References (Abrahamic Religions), Biblical Themes (Abrahamic Religions), Catharsis, Christianity, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Grief/Mourning, He/Him Pronouns For Aziraphale (Good Omens), Healthy Relationships, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Jesus Christ Superstar is heavily referenced in this fic, Loss, No beta we fall like Crowley, Other, Pastor Aziraphale, Religion, She/Her Pronouns for Crowley (Good Omens), Trans Aziraphale (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-19 04:22:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29744919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChristocentricQueer/pseuds/ChristocentricQueer
Summary: Aziraphale grieves two deaths that are only days apart and struggles with God. Crowley is there to comfort him.Set in the same AU as "Brave to Stay, Brave to Leave." Aziraphale is a Protestant Pastor in a fictional denomination. He is a trans man. It is set after "Brave to Stay, Brave to Leave." He is in a relationship with Crowley, who is genderfluid.Title comes from "Jesus Christ Superstar." The song is heavily referenced in this fic. I recommend watching the scene first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRyl8XZUIWs
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Pastor Fell [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2201400
Comments: 5
Kudos: 17





	Gethsemane (I Only Wanted To Say)

**Author's Note:**

> These past two weeks have been very difficult. Two weeks ago, one of my congregants passed away from a brief illness. This week, one of my close friends died from a massive heart attack and another congregant passed away after a lengthy illness. I have had a year filled with a lot of grief, loss, and change upon change. Due to my past, I struggle to verbally express my feelings. The written word is how I best express myself and permit myself to be vulnerable. 
> 
> Thanks for reading. I love and appreciate y'all who like and read my writing. 
> 
> "Gethsemane (I Only Wanted To Say)" is a song I listen to a LOT when I am dealing with a lot of grief. It has been a great comfort for several years now. 
> 
> The Bible translation I used for this fic is the New King James Version (NKJV). It has a poetic quality to it that I deeply appreciate in times of struggle.

Ted Neeley’s voice echoed through the cottage. Aziraphale was curled up on the couch, covered up with a blanket. He looked disheveled, and his chubby cheeks were stained with dried tears. The clicker was held between his hands, which he put together as though in prayer. Aziraphale imagined himself walking up a hill, dressed in his clerical garments. All the people he loved fast asleep below him. That wasn’t his present anymore. The people in his life walked that mountain with him. But the past wounds ran deep. The numerous times he was abandoned, left to suffer in hospitals, at home, in the church all alone by people who supposedly cared…In his current bout of grief, Aziraphale was in that headspace, as hard as he worked to fight it.

_I only want to say  
If there is a way  
Take this cup away from me  
For I don't want to taste its poison  
Feel it burn me, I have changed  
I'm not as sure as when we started  
  
Then I was inspired  
Now I'm sad and tired  
Listen, surely, I've exceeded expectations?  
Tried for three years, seems like thirty  
Could you ask as much from any other man?_

“Tried for thirty odd years, seems like sixty…” Aziraphale sighed.

Some weeks were longer than others. More difficult. He felt the exertion of climbing up the mountain. He felt alone in Tadfield, in the cottage he and Crowley called their little Eden. But today, it didn’t feel like Eden. It felt like Gethsemane. A painful, heartbreaking climb alone with no one to journey alongside him. That was, of course, partially his own fault. He had a hard time letting people in, though he was certainly improving. It was damn hard, but he’d made progress. Aziraphale felt a deep gratitude for his dear girl and Brother Francis. The late Joshua and Priestess Deborah… A few tears fell from his eyes at the thought of his recently departed. One drawn out, the other sudden. He felt waves of numbness, sadness, anger. They crashed over him. So it goes with grief.

Still, his attention never left Ted Neeley. Aziraphale mouthed along the lyrics, his voice too hoarse to properly do it justice.

_But if I die  
See the saga through and do the things you ask of me  
Let them hate me, hit me, hurt me, nail me to their tree  
I'd want to know, I'd want to know my God  
I'd want to know, I'd want to know my God  
I'd want to see, I'd want to see my God  
I'd want to see, I'd want to see my God  
  
Why I should die?  
Would I be more noticed than I ever was before?  
Would the things I've said and done matter anymore?  
I'd have to know, I'd have to know my Lord  
I'd have to know, I'd have to know my Lord  
I'd have to see, I'd have to see my Lord  
I'd have to see, I'd have to see my Lord  
If I die, what will be my reward?  
If I die, what will be my reward?  
I'd have to know , I'd have to know my Lord  
I'd have to know, I'd have to know my Lord_

_Why, why should I die?  
Why should I die?  
Can you show me now that I would not be killed in vain?  
Show me just a little of your omnipresent brain  
Show me there's a reason for your wanting me to die  
You're far too keen on 'where' and 'how' but not so hot on 'why'_

Aziraphale’s clasp on the clicker tightened, though he was careful not to press the buttons. He had a lot of questions for God. Why should he and his people suffer? Suffer grief, loss, the despair of injustice. Aziraphale struggled with the Crucifixion, Christ’s suffering in Gethsemane. Aziraphale wished he could hit those high notes like Ted, express lament through screams, cries, howls…But his lament only came in the form of tears, sobs, lying face down on a pillow, clenching the ridiculously large teddy bear Crowley had given him on a whim. And, he supposed, the written word was his way too.

He watched with rapt attention as the art of Christ’s crucifixion flashed before his eyes. Close ups of the nails in His hands and feet. His face hung, eyes closed, mouth slack. The wound in His side. Aziraphale felt the anger well up inside at the final image, Christ looking up, mouth open and clearly in pure agony.

“ _And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying ‘Eli, eli, lama sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?_ ”[1] Aziraphale said between clenched teeth.

He sure wished God would show him just a little of His omnipresent brain…Where was God? Where was God in that moment, when Aziraphale was laying on the couch, heartbroken and grieving? Where was God when loss after loss happened? Yes, he _believed_ in omnipresence. It was part of the Beloved Disciples tradition that had given him tremendous comfort. But right now, he couldn’t _feel_ it. Aziraphale couldn’t feel God _at all._ It was as if She’d left him to his own devices. Bailed on him when his pain reached the firmament. Were his prayers, tears, pleas to God for Their comfort and presence going to a Metatron? Some bizarre male appearing thing that spoke for God? A stand-in so God wouldn’t be bothered by Aziraphale’s cries?

_Then, I was inspired  
Now, I'm sad and tired  
After all I've tried for three years  
Seems like ninety  
Why, then, am I scared to finish  
What I started?  
What you started!  
I didn't start it!_

_God, thy will is hard  
But you hold every card  
I will drink your cup of poison  
Nail me to your cross and break me  
Bleed me, beat me, kill me, take me now  
Before I change my mind!_

Aziraphale watched the scene come to a close, Ted Neeley reaching out to God. Looking at the clouds and the peeking of the sun’s rays as he stood all alone. Reluctantly agreeing to drink the poison that was pain, suffering, and an excruciating death. Accepting the reality that His body would be broken by the cruelty of others. Perhaps aware—or not—that most of the people would leave Him in His darkest hour. Just as Christ felt God had forsaken Him, He would know what it was like to be forsaken by the men who supposedly followed and loved Him.

“ _And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying ‘Eli, eli, lama sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?_ ” Aziraphale repeated.

He gritted his teeth at the memory of the words of “comfort” his fellow Christians said when people died. He’d even said them, prayed them with people—he felt a pang of guilt and disgust when he remembered those moments. Those platitudes fell so easily from his lips not long ago, as freely as they fell from the Christians’ he spent his time with. But these words were of no comfort anymore. They were filled with troubling, disturbing ideas about God when Aziraphale permitted himself to question. Were these beliefs helpful when he received the news that Joshua died peacefully in his goddaughter’s apartment? After Priestess Deborah’s sudden death from a massive heart attack? He replayed those platitudes like the tape of “Jesus Christ Superstar”:

“It was God’s will that they died.”

“Heaven needed another angel.”

“God is in complete control. Everything is His will.”

What a cruel God if those theological statements were true. What about the people who loved and needed them on Earth? Why would God _want_ to kill Priestess Deborah and Joshua? What was God’s will, anyway? Where was God in all this pain?

Aziraphale was disappointed in God. He longed for answers but knew he may never get them. Well, he knew he most like wouldn’t, as experience had showed him over and over again. Aziraphale felt that God was far away, like the idea of God as a “clockmaker.” Set everything in motion and then left humanity all alone. Hanging out somewhere above the firmament He created so that people’s prayers would bounce right off. A noise blocker of sorts.

These thoughts were things he seldom could say. His Christian colleagues were uncomfortable with questioning God’s “Great Plan.” Questioning Her nature, straying from the doctrines passed down throughout the centuries. Some avoided the Cross at all costs, focusing only the Resurrection. Aziraphale, too, had been taught not to question. To simply accept what he’d been told. That any feelings of anger, disappointment, frustration with God were unacceptable. God was Ineffable, true. And he was told to simply trust in Their will and leave it at that.

But the heartache of unanswered prayers and questions crushed Aziraphale sometimes. The smile would fall from his face, the tears would spill, and it would bring him to his knees. But these were feelings that he seldom could voice out loud. So he didn’t.

Aziraphale rewound the tape back to the beginning of “Gethsemane” and allowed the feelings to crash over him. He picked up the Bible he’d tossed on the floor and flipped to Luke 22:41-44. As Ted stared at his companions who were fast asleep, Aziraphale read the passage:

_And He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and prayed, saying, “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.” Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him. And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground._

The tears began to flow again. Aziraphale’s tears became like great drops of blood falling down onto the verses. He wished he knew what God’s will was. He wished he could understand Her. He wished for an angel to appear who would give him the strength to power through the weekend.

Aziraphale hoped that his tears were enough of a prayer.

***

As soon as Crowley came in the cottage, she knew Aziraphale was hurting. He only watched “Jesus Christ Superstar” when his heart ached with the pains of ministry. She’d never expected Aziraphale to watch something that came after Shakespearean times. Aziraphale shared it with her during one of their late-night conversations. Crowley was thankful he did. She could understand him without having to ask. She wouldn’t tease him about his tastes and make his pain worse.

Crowley set her purse and keys on their designated table by the door. She took off her stilettos as quietly as she could. Aziraphale hadn’t stirred, hadn’t greeted her. Bad sign. Without a word, Crowley walked to the couch. She gently took the tear-stained Bible from Aziraphale’s hands and set it on the coffee table. Crowley tenderly scooped Aziraphale up in her arms and took him to the bedroom. Aziraphale wrapped his arms around her and clung to her as if he were a koala. Aziraphale would’ve cried if he could, but the well had run dry.

She carefully lowered Aziraphale onto the bed and slithered next to him. She coiled herself around Aziraphale and squeezed him tight. Aziraphale put his hands on hers and allowed his body to go slack. There was no one who made Aziraphale feel as safe as Crowley. And he was thankful that she’d learned that holding him tight when he was in immense emotional pain helped ground him. It felt like Crowley was carefully bringing him back down to Earth. Reminding him that he was safe in their cottage. Safe to be vulnerable, take the mask off and allow Crowley to see how raw he was.

After an hour had passed, Crowley softly spoke. “So, “Gethsemane”…Want to talk about it, angel?

Aziraphale let out a shaky breath. He _knew_ that she cared and sincerely wanted to hear about his feelings. But goodness gracious was it hard to _accept_ it as reality. After all the gaslighting, invalidation, abandonment, and loneliness in his sixty years of life…It was overwhelming to truly be loved sometimes.

“Y-yes, Crowley. Let me turn to face you,” Aziraphale responded. Crowley loosened her grip so he could face her.

Crowley placed a hand on his cheek and gave him a kiss on the forehead. “What happened?”

Aziraphale made himself look into her eyes. It was hard, but he wanted to be vulnerable with her. Crowley deserved that.

“I have to admit, dear girl, that I didn’t tell you about something that I found out about on Tuesday…Do you remember Priestess Deborah?” Aziraphale asked.

“Course. The one who married you ‘n Christopher,” she responded.

“Well…She…She died of a massive heart attack on Monday evening. On Tuesday, I called the priestess retirement community she’d recently moved into so we could chat. Of course, I was not able to speak with Deborah—the switchboard operator let me know that she passed. There is no way I will be able to attend her funeral, given that she is thousands of miles away… I feel rather bereft of closure,” Aziraphale answered.

Crowley couldn’t help but feel a little hurt by Aziraphale’s omission. Why didn’t Aziraphale tell her? She would’ve listened and comforted him. He’d done a great job of hiding it. Sure, she noticed Aziraphale was throwing himself hard into work. But she just figured it was a busy week. Well, then again, Aziraphale also hadn’t been as verbal as he usually was either. How did she not notice something was wrong? Guilt blended in with the hurt she felt.

Aziraphale immediately picked up on the shift and sighed. “I’m sorry, dear girl. I know that I should have told you what happened. I was simply too shocked and overwhelmed to feel ready to speak about it. Please do not take my inability to share when it happened as any distrust of you,” he said.

Crowley nodded in understanding. “I know, angel. Just wish I could’ve helped more, y’know. ‘Cause I love you and all that.” She looked at Aziraphale with a fierce intensity. To anyone else, her gaze would look scary. To Aziraphale, he understood it was the look she gave him when she _knew_ there was more to the story.

Crowley was able to say as much when Aziraphale brought his finger up to her lips to silence her. “You’re right, my darling Crowley. But please, give me a moment…Can we change positions, dear girl?” Aziraphale asked.

Crowley slowly sat up and fluffed up the pillows behind her. She spread her legs apart so Aziraphale could comfortably occupy the space between them. Aziraphale nestled in and rested his body weight against her. Crowley wrapped one arm around his hefty tummy and ran the fingers of her other hand through his hair. His hair was a hot mess, sticking up every which way. It certainly fit the state she’d found him in that evening.

“…Joshua died this morning,” Aziraphale whispered.

She felt as though the wind punched out of her. They’d visited Joshua after church on Sunday. He was in good spirits after getting his pain medication. Crowley thought that Joshua had longer to live—she was more of an optimist in that way than Aziraphale was. Aziraphale was almost always conservative in his “estimates” of how long people had left. Given his AIDS ministry as a chaplain for many years, Crowley understood his more cynical approach.

Crowley let out a heavy sigh. “Fuck, that’s bloody terrible news, dove. ‘M sorry to hear that. Bad enough as it is, him dying. But Someone, finding out on your day off? Shit, angel…Just…Dunno what to say.”

“There aren’t any words, really. We knew that it was coming, dear girl. I had a suspicion it would occur at some point this week. He had such a hard time drinking his juice from his sippy cup, and he hadn’t eaten more than a cup of yogurt in days…Joshua could hardly chew ice anymore. Even his grip on his stuffed kitty was weak.”

Aziraphale couldn’t help but smile a little when he remembered the kitty. It was white with a pink tail, stained with a little drool and food. He’d never gotten the story of why he had it and its significance. Perhaps Valerie would tell him if he asked. Maybe it was best left a mystery.

Aziraphale hesitated for a moment but continued on. “Crowley, there is something else going on within me that I’m rather afraid to say.”

Crowley stroked Aziraphale’s hair soothingly and tightened her hold on his waist. “Don’t even need to say that, angel. Wouldn’t have been listening to ol’ Ted if there wasn’t more to this,” she said.

“Are you in a space where I can speak of God and my spiritual state?” Aziraphale asked.

“Yes,” Crowley answered without hesitation.

Aziraphale felt the tenseness in his shoulders relieve some. It was where he carried much of the spiritual and emotional pain in his body. He hadn’t realized how tense he’d become until the moment Crowley gave him her consent to share.

“Dear girl, I am struggling with where God is, amidst all of this. A new congregant’s death two weeks ago, Deborah on Monday, Joshua this morning…Is there some Great Plan that I’m not seeing? I am questioning it and am rather disturbed by the idea that She may have full control, some Great Plan for their deaths and my…I must admit, my grief surrounding my losses. Does God really hold every card in life? Crowley, I-I have so many questions that I haven’t been given an answer to…I was taught not to ask questions, to simply trust God had a Great Plan and all is exactly as She made it. Bishop Gabriel reminds me of this every time I pose questions and disagree with where he is coming from. The Elders in my past did not permit it… Is it okay to question and be upset with God’s…Well, supposed absence?” Aziraphale asked himself more than Crowley.

Crowley sat with Aziraphale’s struggle. It reminded her of a prayer she said to God after being beaten over the head with theology as a child and while still in the clutches of Brother Titus.

_I only ever asked questions. That’s all it takes to be a demon in Christianity. God, are You listening? Show me a Great Plan. Okay, I know I’ve been told you’re testing us. You “said” somewhere that You were going to be testing us. But God, You shouldn’t test us to destruction. Not to the end of our lives…Where are You? Do You even listen? ‘F You are testing me, what a cruel God You are…_

She’d decided after that prayer that she would never stop questioning. No matter where she fell in life, she’d always be a heretic in some way. Crowley didn’t believe that was a bad thing, and she would never apologize for all the questions she asked. Even though it cost her so, so much in her life. It bothered her that Aziraphale had been in Christian spaces that never allowed him a moment to express his frustrations with God. As far as Crowley was concerned, that was not a weakness. It wasn’t a doubt. Aziraphale was the most faithful person he’d ever met, in word and deed. Whatever anyone else said about it, Crowley saw Aziraphale as a true angel. Not just because of his white hair that looked like a halo. Not just because of his cherubic appearance of the Rubenesque variety. No, it was because of how much he cared about people and how hard he worked to show people the love they desperately needed.

“I know ‘m not a Christian, Aziraphale. Probably not looking for a demon in the eyes of the church’s perspective on all this,” Crowley responded after several minutes.

Aziraphale processed her statement. Even if he didn’t have a Christian in his life that he knew of that would hear his doubts and feelings, Crowley was rather good at holding space for that. She always asked questions and criticized the things that she felt were toxic. Even the times when it rubbed against Aziraphale’s theology that he’d worked so hard to build in his long life. Particularly his hope in Their omnipresence…Which he couldn’t feel in his overwhelmed state. Goodness, did that hurt.

“My dear girl, I do not want or need you to be a Christian. One of the things I love best about you is your bravery to question. I feel safe…Oh Crowley, I am so very angry and disappointed with God right now! I can hardly stand it!” Aziraphale broke down and sobbed again. The tears fell. Ted’s questioning flooded his soul:

_I'd have to know, I'd have to know my Lord  
I'd have to see, I'd have to see my Lord_

Why didn’t God listen? Where was God? Where was the feeling of God taking him in Her arms, rocking him to sleep? Where was God in the three heartbreaking deaths he was processing and grieving? He wanted to know. He wanted God to show him. But She never answered.

“Say it, dove. Say what you need to. C’mon, ‘ve got you, s’okay. Between you, me, ‘n Someone,” Crowley cooed softly in Aziraphale’s ear.

“I am terribly cross with You! I love You and I am disappointed in You! You’ve left me at Gethsemane, You’ve taken me to the Cross! Good Lord, I dislike You in this moment!” Aziraphale wailed.

Aziraphale cried out like the Psalmist who poured their heart out in Psalm 88:

_But to You I have cried out, O Lord,  
And in the morning my prayer comes before You.  
Lord, why do You cast off my soul?  
Why do You hide Your face from me?  
I have been afflicted and ready to die from my youth;  
I suffer Your terrors;  
I am distraught. **[2]** _

He channeled his inner Jonah, who cried out _It is right for me to be angry, even to death! **[3]** _

He allowed his inner Job to bubble to the surface when he lamented, giving no fucks to his friends who tried to shove their shit theology down his throat. Job was not afraid to call out God and demand answers. Proclaim his innocence and express the pain and agony he felt:

_“If I cry out concerning wrong, I am not heard.  
If I cry aloud, there is no justice.  
He has fenced up my way, so that I cannot pass;  
And He has set darkness in my paths.  
He has stripped me of my glory,  
And taken the crown from my head.  
He breaks me down on every side,  
And I am gone;  
My hope He has uprooted like a tree.  
He has also kindled His wrath against me,  
And He counts me as one of His enemies.  
His troops come together  
And build up their road against me;  
They encamp all around my tent. **[4]** _

Aziraphale felt the pain of Jesus deep within his soul. He felt the wounds on Jesus’ hands, feet, and side. He heard Jesus when He cried out _Eli, eli, lama sabachthani?_ to the Heavens. He felt himself at the foot of the cross, shocked at the cruelty of man and wracked with grief, knowing that his Teacher suffered a violent, painful death.

In that moment, Aziraphale had an intense revelation. Jesus and all those before him lamented and openly challenged God. They questioned. They felt anger. They cried out and allowed their frustration and anger with God to flow freely and without shame. Even if he never found another Christian who would hold space for his frustration with God, at least he had his wily serpent to encourage him to let loose.

“Thank You, God. And fuck You, God,” Aziraphale said after he’d made himself hoarse.

He thanked God for Crowley’s love and presence in his life. He thanked Crowley for permitting his questions and supporting him as he worked through his true feelings. He thanked God for the gift of knowing Joshua and Priestess Deborah. And he thanked Crowley for helping him spit out that “fuck you” that felt so, so bloody good.

“A-fucking-men angel. That’ll preach,” Crowley responded.

[1] Matthew 27:46

[2] Psalm 88:13-15

[3] Jonah 4:9

[4] Job 19:7-12


End file.
